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Peterson Field Guide to Caterpillars

The Concise Field Guide to 120 Common Caterpillars of North America

by Amy Bartlett Wright

Reviewed by Kerry Lake, MG '13

In 1934 Roger Tory
Peterson published his Field Guide to Birds. The book was designed so
that live birds could be readily identified at a distance by their
patterns, shapes, and field markings. This book introduced the
“Peterson System”. This system has grown to over 50 volumes on a range
of subjects from plants, rocks, astronomy, insects, and animals. Now we
have the Peterson First Guides which are smaller field guides -- just
the right size to take out to the field, or in this case, into the
garden for the identification of caterpillars.

Why should we care about identifying the
caterpillars in our gardens? Besides being very interesting, we should
learn to identify the caterpillars of the insect species that we would
like to encourage in our gardens. Butterflies are beautiful as they
flit in and out pollinating the flowers. Don’t forget the moths. Moths
are just as important as butterflies in pollinating our plants. Have
you ever seen a hummingbird moth? This is a very busy pollinator. If
we can identify the caterpillar, we will know if these caterpillars
eating a small portion of the leaves of a beloved tree are a species we
want to encourage to stay in our garden, or discourage their time spent
here.

We discourage the use of pesticides at any time and would instead
encourage pruning out the branches that any ‘non-welcome’ caterpillars
inhabit. If a pesticide is absolutely necessary, identification of the
specific caterpillar is necessary, along with the research to know the
correct time in the life cycle of this insect to use a pesticide, and
the correct pesticide to use. We can’t say it enough: Pesticides are
non-discriminatory, and they affect the ‘good’ insects along with the
‘bad’.

This lovely little First Guides Caterpillars begins with the
life cycle of Butterflies and Moths, detailing each stage. There is an
explanation of the structure of the caterpillar, protection and
defense, and even how to raise caterpillars (hint: provide shelter and
their favorite food). Descriptions of the different body types
is fascinating; smooth, hairy, bristled, bumpy, knobs, rear horns,
filaments, and slug-like are all illustrated in simple drawings. The
guide includes color illustrations of the 120 specimens with the caterpillar
next to that of the adult butterfly or moth. Looking closely at the
Swallowtail illustrations, I notice that each of the Swallowtail
caterpillar types have subtle markings differentiating one from the
other, giving a hint as to the specific adult Swallowtail it will
become.

I just spent 45 minutes looking at the illustrations again. Indeed,
it is easy to get lost in this little book. I highly recommend it for
every gardener, young and old!